James Cromwell was horrified by George Miller's vision for Babe sequel

James Cromwell was left horrified by director George Miller's vision for the Babe sequel, Babe: Pig in the City.

The veteran Hollywood actor played farmer Arthur Hoggett in the 1995 original, and reprised his role for the follow-up three years later, and in an interview to celebrate the 25th anniversary of the much-loved family movie, Cromwell reflected on the experience of shooting Miller's sequel.

He revealed that the Australian filmmaker was secretive over the content of the movie, and refused to show the flick to bosses at Universal until it was completely finished, leaving them stunned when they saw scenes of a brutal animal laboratory, and a dog drowning.

"There are animals with posts drilled into their skulls and sores, cancers, it was – oh my God," he told The Hollywood Reporter. "And then the dog-drowning sequence – my son actually worked on that as a CGI artist, and when I saw that thing I thought, 'They can’t show this to kids. The kids’ll freak!'"

Cromwell recalled Universal bosses pleading with Miller to cut the gory scenes out of the family movie, but he initially refused, forcing them to postpone the premiere.

"He said, 'I can’t just cut out what you don’t happen to approve of. I have to rebalance the whole picture.' And they said, 'If you have to rebalance the whole picture just do that because we can’t show that.' And so they had to cancel the opening," he stated.

Elsewhere in the interview, The Green Mile star said he had to step in when Miller, who served as producer and co-writer on Babe, began admonishing director Chris Noonan, who helmed the original.

"He pulled Chris away from set down into the middle of the field and I could see them, George and his righthand guy, sort of grilling Chris. Waving their fingers in front of Chris’ face. I thought, 'Hum, that’s not so good. Let’s not have that,'" he explained.